Companies Say 3 Million Unfilled Positions in Skill Crisis: Jobs

[Turbineguy]

Roddale Smith knew he could do better than toting chairs around at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. And when he decided to pursue an education, he didn’t have to go far. His employer brought the classroom to him.

It paid off for both sides. Smith, 32, graduated from nursing school last month and Children’s Hospital, in need of skilled workers, has a new job waiting for him. His salary, now $12 an hour, will almost double.

More:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-25/companies-say-3-million-unfilled-positions-in-skill-crisis-jobs.html#disqus_thread

There are some very good comments attached to the article.

My own experience: Last year I took a temp job with an American corporation. It was technical consulting work. Piece work and no benefits. OK for a retiree. They wanted to hire a bunch of people but did not want them working together or collaborating on-line. After I got started I found out that the local McDonalds was paying $9.67 per hour and you did not need a college degree and 30 years of experience. Later I found out that the two guys running the project had allocated 85% of total funding to management and profits. They planned on paying those doing the heavy lifting 15%. They presented the work as doing something "good". As in "you'll be rewarded in heaven". Apparently they must have thought that they would not be going to heaven and so they'd better grab all they could. These guys were MBA's and were not capable of doing the work themselves.

[gregoire]

1. What a bold-faced lie

If there were really 3 million unfilled jobs, they would be hiring.

[hack89]

3. Not if the right skills are scarce.

that is what the entire article is about - a shortage of specific skills and what companies are doing to train workers.

[pinboy3niner]

4. So why are the skilled people out there being turned down for lesser jobs as 'overqualified'?

The claims that Americans don't have the required skills are giving off a strong odor of BS...

[TwilightGardener]

6. Tell me about it. I am being turned down for jobs that I am definitely

overqualified for. Jobs I USED TO DO, in fact. It's bullshit.

[pinboy3niner]

7. Thanks

And I wish you the best of luck. The kind of economy they're trying to turn us into SUCKS. For you, and for all of us.

[hack89]

9. Look at the industries that laid off a lot of people

look at the industries that are hiring. Are they the same? Perhaps that is where you will find your answer.

[pinboy3niner]

14. Our universities have continued to crank out skilled grads in all fields

Many of those grads are out there, jobless, while the corporations claim they just can't find qualified people.

That doesn't smell to you? Really?

[Aerows]

16. They don't want to pay anything

If you aren't paying, you aren't going to get quality workers that don't come in and out like a revolving door. It's as simple as that.

[meow2u3]

29. Employers forgot that they get what they pay for

If employers don't pay their workers what they're worth, employees are not going to put out high quality work.

In other words: You pay peanuts, you get monkeys (or is it elephants?).

[slampoet]

10. The skills are scarce because that $12 an hour nursing job paid $11 an hour in 1980.

and student loans were full government training programs like CETA and now those loans are private are being charged at higher and higher rates.

I know at least seven young people who can get into almost any college but they can tell that there aren't many fields that are going to be around in four years so they are doing other things for now.

Funny how no one had a bad shortage of good IT people when they were paying them 100 grand in the Dot com days, but as soon as we start deflating the pay to half that, they we start seeing the companies trying to change immigration law and outsourcing as much as they can, but the companies still complain that there is a shortage of good IT people.

[One_Life_To_Give]

12. Scarce or too pricey?

Average Nurse salary $45/hr Boston, $29/hr Baton Rouge and Cincinnati $32/hr.
For $24/hr I guess it would be worth while put a prospective employee thru school as well.

[Aerows]

18. Working conditions are part of the problem, too

It's not enough to just soak the employee by giving them low pay, but they also try to get away with low pay and terrible working conditions like bad hours. It's not a surprise that qualified people don't want to take a job with crappy pay and under rough conditions.

But hey, pay that CEO $100 million because he did it all by himself and his wonderful management capabilities.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

30. I saw how nurses work when my late mother and stepfather were hospitalized

They were literally RUNNING from patient to patient---AND they have to fill in required items in the electronic databases, whether they're relevant for that patient or not.

[Aerows]

11. They would be

except they want to pay next to nothing and continue to have shitty working conditions. That's why the jobs are unfilled.

[EC]

2. So why don't they go back

to job training at the job? Used to be that you'd get a job and the person leaving or someone else doing the same job, would teach you the job.

[Aerows]

13. That's all the rage these days

Pay someone a high salary, have them train a person that is nowhere near as skilled, then get rid of the highly paid person.

Then they end up with someone that doesn't know half of what they need to know to do the job, but they get paid a quarter of what the person that could competently do the job would earn.

Every company wants McDonald's salaries for Harvard work.

[gkhouston]

17. That's nothing like the training that companies used to offer.

One of my sisters hired on at a big company as a second-shift keypunch clerk, back in the day. Her manager thought she seemed bright and hardworking, so she was offered a training class. And another. And another. She's a mid-level manager now. Never did make it to college.

[Aerows]

20. No, it isn't

Forward looking companies value loyal, competent employees. Companies that are disasters to work for try to scrimp and save on the backs of their workers and then can't figure out why they are in this boat of not having people want to work for them.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

31. The bank my cousin worked for was sued for sex discrimination in the late 1970s

As part of the settlement, they had to open management training programs to their (mostly female) tellers and secretaries.

My cousin, who never finished college, took advantage of that and ended up as a top performing loan officer.

Opportunities like that are scarce now.

[EC]

27. No, not the shit they

offer now. In the 60's and 70's people were actually trained to move up in the company. Employees (even part-timers) were seen a investments. High turn over was frowned on. When human resources hired someone, that someone was then considered part of the company and would be trained to do the job for which they were hired, in the way they wanted the job done. When there were new openings in other departments currant employees were actually encouraged to move up since the company already invested in them.


I know that now, it's all about the cheapest employee and no loyalty. There is absolutely no investment in employees anymore. No benefits, very little in the way of moral lifters (like a nice lunch room or clean bathrooms) and very little concern as to rather they are even earning a living wage.

[TwilightGardener]

5. Guy goes to nursing school, and becomes a nurse. I'm missing the "news" in this news story.

And nursing schools have waiting lists--had them since I began applying in 1992. In fact, there used to be hospital-based diploma programs everywhere where you'd agree to work at the hospital in exchange for some tuition assistance. I am just not getting this article at all.

[Aerows]

15. Well, if he can't get a job with decent pay

Then his training hasn't done him a lot of good, has it? I swear, some people expect that you should work your ass off for minimum wage and be thankful about it.

It's ridiculous to expect a highly educated person to do a crap job for little more than Wal-mart pay, particularly when lives are in their hands.

I'm not disrespecting people that work hard, and work at Wal-mart, but damn, a nurse is a little bit more highly trained and skilled out of their own pocket book than a Wal-Mart worker. If you can't find a worker, it's because you have been conditioned to think that every single worker deserves as little pay as you can get away with giving them, and that just doesn't fly in certain jobs.

Worker loyalty produces results, and workers resenting you produces turnover.

[pinboy3niner]

19. Welcome to the new American economy

They've worked very hard to get us to this point. The fuckers!

[bongbong]

28. Are you crazy?

You can buy a nice second-hand tent for about 1 weeks pay (minimum wage), and live on public land (free).

That's all the average American needs according to repigs.

[gkhouston]

21. So, it's possible to give more training to someone who moves chairs

or brushes patients' teeth, but highly skilled tech positions have to be filled by workers already possessing the exact skills needed? I guess those folks are untrainable.

[Aerows]

22. They aren't

When it requires them to come onto the job being able to do certain tasks. Do you think a SQL database manager can be trained in two weeks to do that particular job? Or that an engineer can be taught the means to prevent loss of productivity?

By all means, try to teach a worker that expects $19,000 a year to do such a job, then leave them to it. If they make it more than 2 weeks and aren't already out the door with another offer of double that, they aren't worth a damn at the job and will become a liability.

[gkhouston]

24. Of course not, but have you looked at the job ads in the last few years?

Entry-level tech jobs are nearly non-existent. The database manager and the engineer would both need a base level of specialized training, e.g., a degree, but the ads usually want 5-7 years of work experience in that position, also. And new grads get that experience where? Companies are treating workers like disposable off-the-shelf supplies -- exact instantaneous fit for the task at hand, and no effort/expense to be spent on maintenance -- and then companies complain about a "skills shortage" when they themselves have done nothing to develop their workforce. Everything is about this quarter's profit and nothing is about long-term planning.

[Brigid]

23. At my school . . .

The Health Sciences Division has programs in Respiratory Therapy, Medical Assisting, Nursing, and Health Information Technology. But each one has the same problem: Few spaces, lots of applicants. Most of the applicants who are turned away could do the work required in the program -- they have to take classes like anatomy and physiology before they can even apply -- but they are turned away. The chairs of these programs say it is because they can only arrange so many internships -- usually 15. I hear that the same thing goes on with Physical Therapy programs elsewhere. Now, if people can't get the training they need in these or other fields, I don't want to hear employers griping about not being able to find employees.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

26. The other problem is mobility

We have several unfilled positions at the moment for which we made offers to candidates but family and or a foaming hatred of Southern California forced them to decline the offer.

[Odin2005]

32. Bullshit lie, an excuse to import more cheap labor.